I recently ran across this meme online. Though I'm generally sceptical of magical claims – meditation definitely helps with stress-related medical conditions, and also with mental and emotional issues, but whether it "increases creativity" or "increases immunity" invites further research – you can't argue with the rest.
I'm also a little leery of that imperative: MEDITATE (you unenlightened bastard). I might like it better with an exclamation point. MEDITATE! sounds more like "let's meditate!" and less like "didn't Ah tell yew to meditate, boot??? GIMME FIFTY!!"
But were it I, I'd just go nominal: MEDITATION. Because, like the advert says, there's no need for gurus.
But it's still an effective notice. Short and to the point. Undemanding. (Except for the implied call to obedience.) So I'm sharing it, so you can share it as well.
Because the fact is, meditation is simple. I'm astonished by those who tell me they'd like to meditate... eventually. Not now. Someday when conditions are right. When they have time to learn.
Well, if that's you, I got good news.
(Hang on, I have to pull on a colourful sweater... OK.)
You can meditate! Right here, right now!
"But Rob!" you say. "How can I meditate, right here, right now??"
Just follow our patented Three Easy Steps®:
1. Do not move. Do not change your clothes or put on New Age music or light incense or buy an expensive bell. Do not memorise a chant. Do not prepare a macrobiotic vegetarian meal. Do not shave your head.
2. Do not do anything but read the short instructions above, under "Simple Meditation". (For the record, that's redundant. At the risk of chapping practitioners of other religions, if you're doing anything other than that, you're not meditating. NTTAWWT.)
3. Now do those instructions, in order. I assume you're already sitting. If not, just skip that one.
When you get to the end of the list, you've meditated. Congratulations, you're Gautama Buddha.
You can stop there, or keep going until you feel like stopping. If you need a reminder of the rules as you continue, reread "Simple Mediation".
That's it. That's what you've been waiting for.
Bit anticlimactic, maybe.
But for some – me, for instance – a revelation.
(Meme courtesy of Bryan Helfrich and Wikimedia Commons.)
« Croyez ceux qui cherchent la vérité, doutez de ceux qui la trouvent. »
André Gide
(English translation here.)
Last week a cougar killed a mountain biker in North Bend, Washington, about an hour from where I live. The Spokane Spokesman-Review's Eli Francovich offers a well-researched overview of the incident and the conversation about it.
Many points I touched on in my review of Cat Attacks resurface in his story. Namely:
- The cougar attacked not one, but two human beings, travelling together. Specifics are elusive, but in the end, the lion killed one of the thirty-something men and wounded the other.
- Both riders were struck in the head, as is typical of big cats.
- Not only was this one unimpressed with their number (they routinely hunt in the midst of large herds), he wasn't even deterred by the rattly, metallic, petroleum-smelling contraptions the creatures were riding.
- This cat uncharacteristically revealed itself before the assault. In that first confrontation, the two cyclists did everything by the book, up to and including straight-up attacking their stalker with their bikes.
- Afterward, the panther demonstrated the cold calculation for which his order is justly renowned, running off through the forest as if frightened, only to loop back, track and observe his targets unseen, and finally, strike decisively from cover.
Authorities agree there was likely nothing the men could have done differently; these guys were well-trained in mountain lion drill. Sadly, this time it was only partially effective against their intelligent, unpredictable alpha predator.
But Francovich's piece raises an interesting data point unconsidered in my book review: the reliance of cougar researchers on bear spray.
Bear spray is the meanest crap on the planet. The effect is physiological, and instantaneous; it literally burns and asphyxiates its object. And cats, even more than bears, are highly sensitive to olfactory insult.
Like a shotgun (and unlike other firearms, which are all but useless in this context), it barely needs to be aimed. This is vital when you're startled and terrified. Point it in the general direction and squeeze. Even if you don't score a direct hit, you'll put the animal on notice that you can hurt it badly if you want to.
Better still: the stuff hisses as it comes out. Language any feline understands.
Doesn't change the fact that you have to see one to use it. These men had an unusual opportunity to use bear spray in their first encounter, but probably did not in the second, fatal, one.
But I'm still gonna get a can. In this case, anyway, that initial hosing-down almost certainly would have made the difference.
For the rest, this latest tragedy re-illustrates, for the benefit of a species famous for its self-regard, the Dharma of the Outback:
"It's their forest. It always has been."
(Warning sign from Arizona's Saguaro National Park courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
I've been meaning to post on this found teisho since I launched Rusty Ring, away back in the Kamakura Period. Somehow I always found a reason not to; afraid to cock it up, I imagine. But conditions have conspired to kick me into gear.
It seems we've entered the Age of Vengeance, wherein no limitation on the godlike All-Seeing I will be endured. Both Right and Left are stomping about, meting out "justice" from a position of self-declared moral superiority, yet in style remarkably similar to a pogrom. (And also to each other. Here's a koan: if you must become your enemy to defeat him, can you?)
As for insight; empathy; forgiveness; compassion; the instinctive restraint that governs men and women of good faith…
Get a rope.
In such times, a hermit monk could do worse than invite his brothers and sisters To See the Invisible Man.
Robert Silverberg's seminal contemplation on the nature of true decency first appeared in the inaugural (April 1963) issue of sci-fi pulp Worlds of Tomorrow. I became aware of it in 1985, when it was faithfully adapted for the first revival of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone.
For those 20-odd minutes I was riveted to the television; though still in my early 20s, I'd lived enough to recognise the unflinching truth Silverberg was burning into my screen. It's nothing less than a Jataka Tale on the gulf that separates bourgeois morality from the real thing.
In this case, we have a man sent up the river for the crime of "being an arsehole". (No wonder Silverberg's utopian society has done away with prisons; with laws like that, there'd have to be one on every block.)
Will their ingenious, diabolic alternative sentence turn this egocentric bastard into a productive citizen? You'll have to see it to find out.
At this writing, two uploads of the Twilight Zone segment are available on YouTube:
The entire series is also available on DVD.
With track records like these, and any good luck, you'll be able to find at least one of them. The writing, performances, and direction are all excellent. Allowance allowed the changing norms of television production, it's aged very well.
If on the other hand you prefer to read the original, then by truly miraculous wrinkle of the Enlightenment Super-Path:
For the rest, I'll leave you with my war cry:
"That which does not kill me, makes me kinder."
It's a simple insight that I realised soon after I become a monk.
It also explains why my own society frequently hates me.
(Mad-scientist chortle.)
(Photo from a screen-cap of the Twilight Zone episode.)
